Can't Say No (18 page)

Come on, Bree, you knew he was the kind to attract women, in the plural.
She reached for the bottle of wine and found Hart had unobtrusively shifted it to the opposite side of the table. The cup of coffee that had just miraculously appeared in front of her was a poor substitute, but it gave her something to do with her hands, stirring black swirls into black swirls.

“So your company is based on field work, with a willingness to show up day or night no matter what the problem is…” Hart continued.

“Exactly.” Marie nodded her head prettily, her dancing eyes never leaving Hart’s face. “Bree can tell you how often she’s been called in the middle of the night by a manager who supervises a night shift…” She shrugged. “When they need their payroll ready by seven in the morning, someone has to be there to make sure it gets done. That’s been our reputation from the beginning—to be there when called, day or night. Actually, Bree sometimes worked forty-eight hours at a stretch—”

“Forty-eight hours at a stretch,” Hart echoed flatly.

Bree caught the little darts Hart’s eyes sent her again. She sent him back a brilliant smile, just for kicks, and reached for her coffee.

“You have to be willing to stay on the job until the problem’s solved. That’s partly why Bree’s so fantastic. My dependable Bree,” Marie said affectionately. “Of course, we’ve expanded since those early beginnings—I have five more people on my staff now. Bree trained them all, and I can remember last January when we had two out with flu. I told Bree I didn’t see how we could possibly manage, but of course—”

“She managed very well,” Hart finished smoothly.

“I can always count on Bree. I swear, I’d have to have two more people without her.” Marie smiled, flashing her eyes up at Hart as he leaned over to refill her wineglass again.

Hart smiled back, very lazily. “But I’m sure you share some of the workload in the field yourself, Marie.”

Marie chuckled. “I hate to admit this,” she whispered conspiratorially, “but I’d be totally lost in the field. Bree does that kind of work better than anyone. My job is to sell the services we have to offer, but if I had to deliver the real nuts and bolts, I’m afraid I’d be a total failure.”

Marie clearly expected Hart to empathize with her, but Hart, at just that instant, dropped his smile. “I would say you were a natural success,” Hart said icily, “at selling
Bree.
”

Bree stiffened, even more so as Marie stood up with a little laugh. “Come on, Hart. There’s an empty dance floor out there, and you must be sick of listening to me talk about business. Between Bree and me, we’ll keep your feet moving for a while.”

Bree noticed the quick flash of annoyance in his eyes, replaced almost instantly with a cool mask. Seconds later, he escorted Marie to the pocket-sized dance floor. The pianist was playing an old torch song, and Bree watched Marie’s fingers seductively climb up Hart’s shoulders, her head tilting back, her lips looking miraculously moistened.

Hart danced like a robot, amazing Bree. She hadn’t figured for him for a disco kid, but the music was sensual and she knew well that he had a most incomparable sense of…rhythm. And his mouth, she noted, was going a mile a minute. The lady in his arms wasn’t getting kissed; she was getting grilled. Poor Marie.

Bree almost smiled, but couldn’t. A clear-cut attack of jealousy would have been easy enough to handle, but she could hardly blame Hart because women fell all over him. She’d done the same, hadn’t she?

And the entire evening had opened up a can of worms. Hart’s comment about Marie “selling Bree” hurt—and badly. If he’d meant it as a compliment to Marie, Bree took it as an insult to herself—one that she, unfortunately, deserved. She
had
let Marie sell her, for five long years. Marie had never demanded; rather, she’d functioned as a football coach. You can do more, Bree; I know you can handle this one, Bree; imagine what this project will do for our reputation, darling; win this one for me…

And she had. Because she was by nature responsible and motivated by security, and because she had always found it so very hard to say no to people.

A cold fog surrounded Bree from nowhere. For days,
she hadn’t thought of Gram.
Once the nightmares were over and her speech had returned, she’d assumed that the trauma was over. The sudden fierce panic in her heart informed her that it wasn’t. All she could think of was that Gram would never have sat here like this. She’d never have stayed in a job where she was being used. She’d never have fallen in love with a man who drew every feminine eye. She’d never have just stood by passively and let things happen to her…

The music ended, and the two were wending their way around tables, coming toward her. Bree barely noticed. As if her hand were attached to another woman’s body, Bree found herself suddenly picking up her purse to depart.

“Bree?” Marie cocked her head in question.

“What’s wrong?” Hart’s voice was quiet, an echo of a dozen intimate love words between them.

But then, Hart was very good with love words. He was brilliant with women, period. “I’m going home,” Bree said brightly, and swung her hips out of the booth. Hart’s fingers curled on her wrist, but she shook herself free. She couldn’t breathe. There was just no air in the place, and Hart’s touch hurt just a little too much.

A waiter was pushing a cart of desserts between the tables. She dodged him, dragging a hand through her hair. Hart was demanding the bill; she heard that, and Marie’s chatter. She knew that the pianist had started another song, and that the carpet was a patterned black and red. Such silly details struck her when for a moment she was utterly disoriented as to the location of the exit. There had to be an exit; they’d come in somewhere—

The door was ridiculously heavy. Once she was outside, she hauled great gulps of night air into her lungs. Her hands were shaking—silly. Nothing was wrong. She was awake—there was no nightmare. She was standing in a parking lot filled with cars; a crescent moon cradled a bevy of stars; a warm breeze wisped around her on an absolutely lovely night…and her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

“We’ll have you home in twenty minutes.” Hart’s baritone was quiet and sure, coming from behind her even as he placed a supportive arm on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off, vaulting for the car.

“Bree? My goodness, darling, what happened? I was just telling Hart that I wanted you to take more time off. You deserve a vacation, so make it as long as you—”

Bree whirled to face Marie. “I’m not coming back,” she said crisply. “I gave you my resignation—you knew that before you came here.”

“Of course I did,” Marie said soothingly, even as she glanced at Hart. The look was “meaningful” and made Bree almost physically ill. “But you can’t give up an excellent job on a whim, darling. I know you don’t mean it. After you’ve had a little more rest—”

“I’ve had tons of rest, and I’ve decided I’d rather wait on tables for a living.” She’d reached Hart’s car, and grabbed the backseat door handle.

“You can’t mean that—”

“You have something against waitresses?” Bree frowned at Hart. He’d removed her hand from the door handle of the backseat and was firmly trying to maneuver her into the front seat next to him. And succeeding. “I would prefer to sit in the back,” she said flatly.

“Tough.” He only mouthed the word, but the pat on her fanny was very close to a push, and he grinned suddenly. “I’m proud of you,” he mouthed again.

Was that supposed to make sense? The man was crazier than she was, and her hands were still shaking. Somewhere in the back of her head she felt a terrible ache, sudden and sharp, taunting her with the memory of failing Gram whom she loved so very much—failing her by failing to be assertive, and endlessly strong, and a thousand other things she’d expected of herself…and never seemed to be.

Hart started the engine. As soon as they were on the road, Marie leaned over the front seat, and that seductive, teasing note she’d used for Hart was gone. This was strictly Marie to Bree. “Look, darling, we’ve been together forever. You can’t just give up your work on a whim—you’ve got more sense than that. When you’ve thought this through—”

“I’ve thought it through. I’m sure in the past decade at least half of all women have thought it through.
Fulfillment’s
the word. The media are trumpeting it. You’ll be fulfilled if you’re successful in your career, and you’re a failure if you can’t manage it all—house and job and husband and children to boot.” Bree twisted around to offer Marie a stony glare. “Hogwash. It means trying to please everyone and going nuts in the process.”

Marie sat back in her seat. “You’re not,” she said stiffly, “yourself.”

That was certainly true. Knife spears were lancing in and around her temples; she was trembling like a leaf in the wind, and she was imagining that Hart had just winked at her, when he was clearly facing the road. Furthermore, she never…yelled. Much less at Marie, who’d come all this way to see her…only to be treated uncivilly?

Silence stretched in the car like a taut rubber band. Hart reached over, flicked on a tape and classical guitar music filled that silence. She felt his eyes on her as clearly as she felt his hand reach for her thigh. She pushed the hand away. Like a fool, she wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to be enfolded and protected and warmed…but again to turn to Hart out of need? He probably considered her a three-day wonder, the one woman in a million who didn’t instantly throw herself at his feet; regardless, she wasn’t his responsibility. She wasn’t anyone’s. Just her own.

Within a half hour, Hart’s headlights gleamed on Marie’s rental car, which was parked by the cabin. They all rushed from Hart’s blue Lexus at the same time.

“Bree?” Marie straightened the collar of her dress, standing in the darkness.

Bree suddenly stretched her hands out, meeting Marie halfway. “I apologize if I sounded rude, and I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing,” she said quietly.

“You can’t be sure—”

“I’m very sure.” Without a glance at Hart, Bree whirled toward the cabin. Inside. If she could just get inside…Nightmare shadows were swallowing her up, none of them real, just something in her head. She had to be alone.

Escape didn’t prove that easy. As she walked toward the porch of her cabin, she heard Marie’s car sputter and cough, and then die. Without turning around, she heard Hart offer to take a turn at starting the rental car. It wouldn’t. She heard Marie say something in a panicked flutter, then Hart’s blunt, “I’ll put you on that plane. Believe me,” which effectively let Bree off the hook. She couldn’t conceivably cope with another hour of Marie’s company. She really couldn’t conceivably cope with anything for a little while. Her hand grasped the doorknob, and suddenly Hart was there, whirling her to face him on the dark porch.

“What the hell’s come over you?” he said furiously.

That fury seemed to come out of nowhere. She stared at him blankly.

“You were doing damned fine,” he hissed. “The broad’s like dynamite with a constantly lit fuse. When I think of you working for her day after day—never mind.” Hart’s jaws clamped together. “The point is that you should be giving a victory cheer, and instead you’re having a silent temper tantrum. What is happening?”

“
Nothing
is happening. Enjoy your ride to the airport,” Bree said brightly.

Hart jammed his hands in his pockets. “For two cents, I’d take you over my knee.”

“You’d have two black eyes first.”

“I’ll take the black eyes,” he growled. “You just be here when I get back.”

“I won’t wait up,” she said pleasantly. “Marie will undoubtedly keep you busy, but then, you’re outstanding at handling lit fuses.”

Those cold blue of his eyes amazingly took on fire. “Make that one cent.
After
you tell me what you meant by that crack.”

Marie called out. Hart turned his head for an instant, and Bree slipped inside the cabin and closed the door.

It wasn’t hard to find her sleeping bag, but her tennis shoes were buried in the back of the wardrobe, and then there was the search for a flashlight with working batteries. Bree had no intention of being there when Hart returned.

Outside, she stumbled pell-mell toward the woods, quickly discovering that flashlights weren’t very effective against a night as dark as black velvet. In time, she made it to the pond. Clouds wisped across the crescent moon, and the water was like a still, charcoal mirror. The stone shoreline was not the most comfortable of sites on which to lay out a sleeping bag.

Keep moving, Bree. Everything will be fine if you just keep moving…
A mosquito buzzed in front of her nose; Bree swatted it as she backtracked to the forest’s edge. The ground was a little damp, but once she’d tossed away a few branches and twigs, it wasn’t an unbearably rough mattress. She stretched out the sleeping bag, slapped another mosquito, slipped off her jeans and tennis shoes in a record three seconds, and zipped herself in up to her throat.

About then her lungs took in one wretched breath after another. She felt like an utter fool. Ungratefully spouting off to Marie, who’d come such a long way to see her, running off as if ghosts were chasing her, snapping at Hart…and she really knew why he’d been glaring at her all evening. Marie might not have known it, but she’d been describing Bree as a woman who jumped before anyone even told her how high. Hart had contempt for that kind of woman.

She didn’t blame him; so did she.

Her head felt as if it were coming off. Wearily, Bree closed her eyes and curled up in a ball.

The nightmare came back in the clouded mists of sleep. It started as it always had, with Bree guiding Gram through the stores, talking her out of carrying her packages, laughing as she ran to get the car. Then the dream turned into a nightmare…but this time there was no screaming siren. Before she felt crushed under the weight of guilt and helplessness, Bree awoke to a predawn world and utter quiet.

Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. She curled up inside the sleeping bag, folded her arms around her knees and cried, rocking herself back and forth. Aching grief surrounded her, inside and out. The tears she’d never allowed before came pouring out, like a flood, an open faucet, a bottomless well.